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In January, the 32-year-old was diagnosed with the horrific disease, one that started with pain from a twisted ankle, and has seen her endure unspeakable torture 24 hours a day. She is now fighting for survival, hopeful for remission, in a specialist treatment centre in the US.

"When the condition first spread, I ended up in Emergency with full body tremors and in an incomprehensible amount of pain - my body had gone into shock," Baxter told news.com.au from her hospital bed.

"It's very difficult to describe the level of pain.

"I can't even give words to it.

"I had no idea the human body was even capable of producing that much pain.

"At my worst, my body felt like I was being dipped in boiling oil - and it was everywhere.

"I knew something was very wrong - so I spent the next six weeks getting every test under the sun - MRI, ultrasound, bone scan, CT scan, blood work - I visited specialist after specialist and none of them could give me an answer about what was going on ... and eventually I gave up trying to find an answer and flew back to the US, where a doctor finally diagnosed me with CPRS."

CPRS is believed to be caused by damage to or a malfunction of the peripheral and central nervous systems, but frustratingly, the full cause is not understood. It most often affects a person's hand, arm, foot or leg after an injury. And while most people recover, the condition can recur and in severe cases, persist for years.

Within a month of diagnosis, the CRPS had spread into Baxter's calf before rapidly spreading through her entire body.

"The level of pain I was feeling in every part of my body told me I was dying," she said.

"It felt like from head to toe I was being burnt alive - and it was a hell that existed inside my own body.

"For the first four weeks after it spread, we struggled to get the pain under control and I spent a good chunk of that month talking and planning my own suicide."

Baxter is currently undergoing a 10-week treatment programme in the US and is making progress getting her pain down to a manageable level.

"I believe that I will go into remission, I just need to keep at it," she said.

"I get three to five chiropractic adjustments a day to release the pressure on my vagus nerve, plus I get hooked up to three different types of machines to help reduce the pain and rehabilitate my nervous system.

Getting treatment for her CRPS. Photo / Gofundme

"They all use electrical current to calm the nervous system in different ways.

"I'm also doing up to five hyperbaric oxygen chambers sessions per week.

"Every treatment is different, and I knew from the time I was diagnosed that I wanted to get well -- and ideally I'd get well without the use of any kind of hardcore drugs.

"For most people diagnosed, they can hope for nothing but pain management -- nerve blocks, ketamine and a variety of pain medications, but I didn't want that. "Many end up stuck on medications, and very powerful ones, for their entire lives, and are forced to keep upping the dose because their body just learns to tolerate it.

"For me, it's important that I actually get to the source of what cause this dysfunction and try to heal from there.

"This has, by far, been the most difficult experience of my entire life.

"I've spent so much of my life helping other people, and never thought I'd be in a position where I'd need so much help myself.

"My goals are to stop it spreading further, be able to walk a reasonable distance without pain and to sit at a table."

The next step for Baxter's treatment is in Bologna, Italy, to try a drug called Neridronate Acid, which has been used there to treat CRPS for years with an 80 per cent success rate. The Neridronate Acid will be infused into her body in four treatments across a two-week period.

"When I first left the hospital I couldn't walk without pain, and I was spending most of my days inside in bed or on a couch with my legs up," she said.